


Begin

by elesssar



Series: Stay [3]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 03:46:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2758409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elesssar/pseuds/elesssar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Final sequel to 'Stay' and 'Leave'.</p><p>Kili is alive, and he's thinking about the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Begin

**Author's Note:**

> So, I saw BoFA the other day and it HURT. A LOT. Therefore I decided that, for the final installment of this series, it may as well have a happy ending, since I suppose we all need it.

The sun is setting and the stars beginning to emerge in the sky. Kili, from where he sits leaning against the rock, looks up at them and wonders. They glitter like diamonds scattered across velvet, and he wonders why he never noticed them before, never cared. They are remote, yes, but not as untouchable as he had thought.

Beside him, Fili snores gently.

Looking over indulgently at his brother, Kili considers finding a piece of charcoal and drawing on him, but decides against it when he catches sight of a figure in the distance. Silhouetted against the light from another fire, Tauriel is slowly picking her way towards them.

For a moment she hovers nervously on the outskirts of the light, but Kili calls her name quietly and holds out his hand, and at last she approaches properly.

She looks exhausted, which is something Kili didn’t know Elves were capable of. Her face is marked with dirt and blood still, so long after the battle, and there are soft purple semi-circles under her eyes. With a tiny sigh, she sits down beside him. Even after witnessing so much death, even this tired, she is still graceful.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her honestly, and she smiles sadly.

“No,” she replies, “not like this. I am alive, but the stars have no grace for me tonight.”

“You speak as if I need the approval of the stars,” Kili says quietly, turning his body to face hers and leaning his head against the rock. It feels cool, and comforting, like an old friend. Perhaps, he supposes, it is. “The stars are cold and far away, as beautiful as they are. It is as you said – they are memory. I have far too many of those to be contending with right now.”

She smiles properly then, her face lighting up like a lantern in the summer skies, and she reaches out to take his hand, turning it over and gently tracing the lines on his palm.

“I did not think,” she says after a few moments of comfortable silence, “to survive that battle. In the heat of it, when it seemed we had no hope...I resigned myself to death. I did not expect to live to see the stars again.”

“Neither did I,” he agrees seriously, “I feel like somehow I shouldn’t have. It seems a ridiculous miracle that I didn’t...well, that I didn’t lose anyone I really care about.”

“I suppose then it is lucky that we both managed to keep our promises,” Tauriel says, recalling their farewell. “We survived, which is, I think, all that we could have asked of each other. Death is so final,”

Kili is viciously reminded that Tauriel shall live to see the passage of history, for her years will be long.

“You might never know,” he says to her, and with the tiniest of tremors her body quakes as she looks up at him.

“This is true, I may not ever die,” she says softly, “I may live to see this world age and fade and crumble beneath my feet. My fear lies not in death, but living through all the remaining years of the world and doing nothing – sitting quietly in the forest as the world lives on around us. Never leaving, never... never loving. I see no point in a life without that.”

“But you don’t have to,” Kili points out, and she smiles again.

“No,” she agrees, “I do not.”

Kili raises his free hand, traces a gentle line along along her jaw and across her cheekbone, revelling in the softness of her skin beneath his calloused touch. There is an entire dialogue in his gesture that goes unspoken between them, for now is not the time for those words, but Kili understands her eyes and he understands her silence, and he understands the tiny blue stone that rests close to his heart.

“I’m glad I didn’t die,” he confesses then, his hand still clutched between hers, “without getting a chance to make you a real crown.”

“What do you mean?” She asks, a tiny furrow appearing between her brows.

“Well,” Kili continues, “on the lake shore, I made you a crown of flowers and branches...”

“I remember it,” Tauriel murmurs, “I don’t know where it is...it fell, I suppose.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kili says, “it was only temporary, anyway. I’ll make you better crowns, of mithril and emerald. I would use diamond, but I think you’d prefer the green.”

Tauriel smiles bemusedly, and Kili continues.

“The halls of Erebor are truly ours now. Thorin is king, and I actually have a kingdom to be prince of, believe it or no.”

“Ah yes,” Tauriel says, “I had forgotten... you are a prince, and I am...nobody, really.”

“You are _not_ ,” Kili says firmly, rising to his knees and carefully talking a hold of both of her hands, looking her in the eye, “nobody. If you let me, Tauriel, I _will_ make you a crown. I’d bring down the stars for you if I could.”

“I don’t think the stars would deign to crown a lowly Silvan elf,” she says with a small sigh, and he shakes his head fervently.

“Tauriel,” he says, “I’m _trying_ to let you know that I want to make you a princess. A real one. Hence the need for a crown.”

“I...what?”

She looks confused and happy at the same time, and so Kili lets go of her hands and knots his fingers in her hair instead, kissing her. She kisses him back, resting her smooth hands against his rough cheeks, and this kiss is nothing like the desperation on the shore only a few days previously. That had been the end of the world, and this is only the beginning.


End file.
